Comments on: Catch all great for spamhunters http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/ Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 17 May 2008 02:28:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.7 by: Master of your mailbox: an email alias for every site you leave your address http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-262551 Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:52:37 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-262551 [...] Forget about a catch-all solution when you do not have an adequate spam filter (from SpamHuntress).  I forward the Catch-all mail to Gmail, which works great so far.  Leave a comment if you have other solutions that work for you. [...] […] Forget about a catch-all solution when you do not have an adequate spam filter (from SpamHuntress).  I forward the Catch-all mail to Gmail, which works great so far.  Leave a comment if you have other solutions that work for you. […]

]]> by: Cal http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-210901 Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:56:04 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-210901 For a while, I too, was using throw-away addresses at my domain whenever I needed to submit an email for a service / page that I didn't completely trust. My plan was to simply have no catchall defined, but explicitly map each of my active addresses back to my primary email provider. However, this doesn't appear to work very well. The problem? It seems that Hotmail's spam filtering system will not accept emails originated from a domain that doesn't have a catchall defined! If I turned off the catchall, the outgoing messages (from my domain) never arrive at Hotmail, but re-enable the catchall and and subsequent emails will pass. I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere and wondered if this is a typical practice? For a while, I too, was using throw-away addresses at my domain whenever I needed to submit an email for a service / page that I didn’t completely trust. My plan was to simply have no catchall defined, but explicitly map each of my active addresses back to my primary email provider.

However, this doesn’t appear to work very well. The problem? It seems that Hotmail’s spam filtering system will not accept emails originated from a domain that doesn’t have a catchall defined!

If I turned off the catchall, the outgoing messages (from my domain) never arrive at Hotmail, but re-enable the catchall and and subsequent emails will pass.

I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere and wondered if this is a typical practice?

]]> by: Mads Dam http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-186707 Sun, 27 May 2007 23:57:32 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-186707 'best solution is spammer server blacklists.' Well, how about botnets..? ‘best solution is spammer server blacklists.’

Well, how about botnets..?

]]> by: Bruce Wagner http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-165473 Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:51:40 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-165473 You simply have an email address for each site... And NO catch-all.... For example: For your account on the rssfwd.com site, you use rssfwd@yourdomain.com For your account on the sharedcopy.com site, you use sharedcopy@yourdomain.com And NO catch-all address! You have those addresses forwarded into your main Gmail account (or whatever), just as your "real" email address is... If you ever get spammed at one of those addresses, you simply delete it. This is all VERY simple to set up if you have a hosting account on godaddy.com Their they give you 100 email forwarding accounts FREE for each hosting account you have. That's more than enough for my needs. HOWEVER, I don't do this myself. Why? Because I don't care about spam. Why? You folks seem to understand little about how it all works... The BEST solution to spam, so far, are spammer server blacklists. They are blacklists of KNOWN spammer servers. These lists are well-maintained and sold on a subscription basis. And they are widely used. Simply click REPORT SPAM button inside your gmail. That's the best solution. I have a catch-all account, and I VERY little problem with spam. You simply have an email address for each site…

And NO catch-all….

For example:

For your account on the rssfwd.com site, you use rssfwd@yourdomain.com

For your account on the sharedcopy.com site, you use sharedcopy@yourdomain.com

And NO catch-all address!

You have those addresses forwarded into your main Gmail account (or whatever), just as your “real” email address is…

If you ever get spammed at one of those addresses, you simply delete it.

This is all VERY simple to set up if you have a hosting account on godaddy.com Their they give you 100 email forwarding accounts FREE for each hosting account you have.

That’s more than enough for my needs.

HOWEVER, I don’t do this myself. Why?

Because I don’t care about spam. Why?

You folks seem to understand little about how it all works…

The BEST solution to spam, so far, are spammer server blacklists. They are blacklists of KNOWN spammer servers. These lists are well-maintained and sold on a subscription basis. And they are widely used.

Simply click REPORT SPAM button inside your gmail. That’s the best solution.

I have a catch-all account, and I VERY little problem with spam.

]]> by: Pascal Van Hecke http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-152769 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:14:26 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-152769 Hi Ann, Thx for your idea, never thougth about it that way. In my case, my catchall is forwarded to my Gmail account, and Gmail still is a good spam filter - I guess an identical or slightly varying mail sent to 5000 accounts@mydomain would end up as in the spam folder anyway. I think most people (or ISP's) use a spam filter nowadays, and a "brute-force" attack (guessing possible user names on a domain) is detected very easily. A spam run using actual mail addressses harvested somewhere is a lot harder to detect (because it's not different from a regular newsletter). I don't consider myself as a spam hunter really - I just discovered the performancing thing because that particular mail _did_ slip trough the spam filter - so I was curious where I got it from. Best Regards, Pascal (BTW if this works, then I found a way to get around Akismet, who doesn't like my domain anymore) Hi Ann,

Thx for your idea, never thougth about it that way.

In my case, my catchall is forwarded to my Gmail account, and Gmail still is a good spam filter - I guess an identical or slightly varying mail sent to 5000 accounts@mydomain would end up as in the spam folder anyway.

I think most people (or ISP’s) use a spam filter nowadays, and a “brute-force” attack (guessing possible user names on a domain) is detected very easily. A spam run using actual mail addressses harvested somewhere is a lot harder to detect (because it’s not different from a regular newsletter).

I don’t consider myself as a spam hunter really - I just discovered the performancing thing because that particular mail _did_ slip trough the spam filter - so I was curious where I got it from.

Best Regards,

Pascal

(BTW if this works, then I found a way to get around Akismet, who doesn’t like my domain anymore)

]]> by: Esrun http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-140346 Sun, 04 Mar 2007 17:56:01 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-140346 Indeed a catch-all email address can be a real pain. Personally I wouldn't recommend it unless you have extremely good spam filtering software. Indeed a catch-all email address can be a real pain. Personally I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have extremely good spam filtering software.

]]> by: Matty B http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-139761 Sat, 03 Mar 2007 23:49:48 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-139761 There are other methods, I use pookmail.com, it is a seriously good tool, it enables you to have a throw away email address you can connect it to an RSS feed. You have to check it out gang, it is awesome :) There are other methods, I use pookmail.com, it is a seriously good tool, it enables you to have a throw away email address you can connect it to an RSS feed. You have to check it out gang, it is awesome :)

]]> by: ingvald http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-138917 Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:18:51 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-138917 a variation that sidesteps the catch-all problem, which i recognize, and doesn't require full control on a server, is using a qmail or gmail address. then you can use address+addition@domain to "tag" different sources, having a restrictive .qmail-default and deleting additions (qmail) or filter out additions (gmail) when spam increases a variation that sidesteps the catch-all problem, which i recognize, and doesn’t require full control on a server, is using a qmail or gmail address.

then you can use address+addition@domain to “tag” different sources, having a restrictive .qmail-default and deleting additions (qmail) or filter out additions (gmail) when spam increases

]]> by: admin http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-138178 Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:42:14 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-138178 To Jan: I can't tell you how to accomplish that, because it differs based on what kind of mail server and setup you're using. But the technical term is catch all - instead of rejecting or bouncing (two different way of handling it) mail to non-existing addresses, the server will happily receive ANY mail to that domain. With some mail setups, it's possible to have catch all and still reject mail to some addresses - configured separately. Like Lemat says, it's also possible to configure a specific address for each new address you give out - without catch all enabled. If you have your own Postfix server, that's a pretty elegant way of doing it. To Jan:
I can’t tell you how to accomplish that, because it differs based on what kind of mail server and setup you’re using. But the technical term is catch all - instead of rejecting or bouncing (two different way of handling it) mail to non-existing addresses, the server will happily receive ANY mail to that domain. With some mail setups, it’s possible to have catch all and still reject mail to some addresses - configured separately.

Like Lemat says, it’s also possible to configure a specific address for each new address you give out - without catch all enabled. If you have your own Postfix server, that’s a pretty elegant way of doing it.

]]> by: jan http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-138163 Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:04:24 +0000 http://spamhuntress.com/2007/02/28/catch-all-great-for-spamhunters/#comment-138163 You can use an alias as shown above. If I send a message to a non existing e-mail address on my website's server I get a address rejected mail and it doesn't show up on the website-email. What you're describing is something like joe-jobbing. I know there are programms out there to generate a lot of fake e-mail addresses with configuration options like @yourdomain.com. But getting them on you're website-email if they don't exist, I don't understand. Please tell me how they accomplish this. You can use an alias as shown above. If I send a message to a non existing e-mail address on my website’s server I get a address rejected mail and it doesn’t show up on the website-email. What you’re describing is something like joe-jobbing. I know there are programms out there to generate a lot of fake e-mail addresses with configuration options like @yourdomain.com. But getting them on you’re website-email if they don’t exist, I don’t understand.
Please tell me how they accomplish this.

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